skirt, his fingertips sliding beneath that too-thin silk and over the burning flesh of her thigh, stroking, teasing.
Promising.
Her back arched, her body reacting wildly to his touch, to the cold magic that was so similar to the magnetic powers crashing through her own veins.
A part of her could almost feel the monster inside him calling to hers, that primordial beast of shadow and rage, hunger and desire. Could almost feel its rumbling snarl echo inside her bones.
Even now, with the world crashing down around her, she knew she could lose herself in this—whatever this was. Could lose herself to Stolas.
“Why does,” his thumb made contact with the inside of her thigh, “this,” he circled higher, higher, higher, “scare you?”
“Stolas.” His name came out pleading, a whispered incantation to . . . what? Stop? Keep going? Both?
Both. But she couldn’t say anything as those hands continued exploring her flesh, running along her runes like he was memorizing them . . . like they belonged to him, and the memory of what those fingers could do . . .
Fear and longing and a strange, breathless panic constricted her spine. Her heart slammed and whirled and, runes, he could probably hear her body freaking out. Could feel it responding to his touch. The inner muscles of her thigh twitching and leaping beneath the teasing flick of his thumb.
Every muscle she possessed jerked rigid as he suddenly brushed his nose over her neck. “If I kiss you,” he murmured, his breath caressing the shell of her ear, “what will you taste like?”
The moment his lips collided with hers, surprisingly soft and gentle, her traitorous mouth parted for him. His tongue swept over hers, slowly, pressing deeper with each kiss.
He leaned back to study her, a strange look on his face. “It’s even in your kiss, a sweet note of panic layered with the wine from earlier.”
“Does that excite you?” she whispered, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say to distract him from the truth. And she knew when he’d fed from the Asgardian, his fear had most certainly roused Stolas—for lack of a more fitting word.
“Excite? I’m not feeding from you Haven. At least . . .” A pause. “Not in that way.”
Sweet Goddess and everything holy.
“So you can separate the two?”
“It takes . . . effort,” he admitted in that husky, remorseless voice. “When I was young and foolish, I mixed sating my hunger with other pleasures, but that was a mistake.”
“And now?”
“Now, I’m simply curious to know why my presence makes your body pulse with fear, when it also makes you feel other things.”
“Things?” Odin strike her down where she stood. “How can you be so sure?”
Biting her lower lip, she willed her damn thigh to stop trembling.
His smile was devastating. And apparently a distraction. His free hand slid around her hip, splayed out flat against the small of her back, and gently tugged her forward.
Her right leg spread out to steady herself—
His thumb flicked over the space in between, there and gone, and what he found there . . .
“Because,” he growled into her ear, “fear doesn’t usually do that.”
Shadeling Below.
“What is it that scares you, Haven? Are you afraid of how I make you feel? Of losing control? Are you afraid of me?”
Her throat clenched, and she pressed deeper into the coolness of the glass wall as heat danced over her skin. Her body was inflamed. On fire. The relentless light of her runemarks glinted off the glass enclosure, drawing even more sea creatures until the water around them glittered.
“I told you I am yours, Beastie. Your monster. Your protector. Say the word and I’ll take you away from here. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“And do . . . what?” Nethergates, she sounded like such an idiot. But she needed him to spell it out. No—she needed him to confirm he felt the same way she did.
That this wasn’t just quenching physical desire.
He chuckled, his lips curling in feline delight. “If memory serves, I’ve already answered that question before. Thoroughly.”
Goddess save her. The fluttering in her chest migrated to her belly.
“And the king?”
“Is not invited.” His stare slid to her lips. “Granted, he is handsome, but I don’t like to share.”
She flicked up her brows in exasperation.
“The king is an idiot. Making him wait a night—or three—would teach him some manners. He wants this alliance as much as we do, I just need to figure out why.”
“So it would be a negotiation tactic?” Something warm